WINNIPEG, MB – Manitoba’s Workplace Safety and Health has fined Manitoba-based Maxim Transportation Services nearly $50,000 after an employee suffered burns in a workplace incident in 2014.

In September of 2014, a Maxim employee experienced burns to his face and left forearm while using an oxygen acetylene cutting torch to cut a hole on the top of a metal 45-gallon barrel.

As the torch pierced the top of the barrel, flames shot out of the filler hole burning the worker. According to Workplace Safety and Health, the barrel was not properly purged of its flammable contents prior to the employee using the torch on it.

On March 23, 2017, Maxim Transport Services pled guilty the charge of failing to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the safety, health, and welfare of its worker and was ordered to pay $48,750 in fines and surcharges.

For more information about WSH and The Workplace Safety and Health Act, click here.